“Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.”

“The artist's transcendence is achieved through success at diagnosing and naming the maladies of the age. Artists tell a different sort of truth than scientists do. The truth of the scientist is a generalizing truth, while the artist or writer's is a particular truth. It is the truth about particular persons in particular situations. The poet or the novelist reveals truths about human lives by embodying these truths in concrete characters, in specific situations. Readers recognize their own reality in the work. We find ourselves saying, as we read, 'Yes! This is how it is for me.' Both those who enjoy the work of artists and the artists themselves achieve transcendence through this identification of the particular truths about selves in the world.”

“No artist knows everything (yea, even this artist - piss-artist, con-artist, body-artist) but since every artist knows more than he can tell, all art is lying by omission.”

“Bad artists ignore the darkness of human existence. Good artists often get stuck there. Great artists embrace the full catastrophe of our condition and find beyond it an even deeper truth of peace, healing, and redemption.”

“I would rather fail as an artist than succeed as anything else.”

“Every great artist has the sense of provocation.”